


A Toast to Our Victory

by time_transfixed



Category: Town of Salem (Video Game)
Genre: Endgame, F/F, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 08:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16082552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/time_transfixed/pseuds/time_transfixed
Summary: They can't both win this time.





	A Toast to Our Victory

The Serial Killer’s house is one of darkness. 

The Arsonist stumbles on the bottles that roll on the floor, both hears and feels the crunch of glass against the soles of her shoes and inadvertently winces. 

She is forced to keep one hand on the wall to feel her away around, fumbles through her pockets for her silver lighter. She watches the small flame come to light, the only light in a sea of darkness, allows it to guide her towards the perpetually drawn window shades. 

The stream of light, merely the light of the dawn as it is, is blinding to her eyes which have already become accustomed to the darkness. 

There’s the Serial Killer’s knives, shoved hastily between crammed bookcases (Marlowe, Hobbes, Cervantes - how fitting indeed) and hidden away behind bowls and cups. Small, unidentifiable bloodstains pepper the carpet, but from the looks of it they’re months old. 

And yes, curled up in the corner is who she’s been looking for, passed out in a pool of wine spilling out from a half empty bottle, her lovely hair mixing with the filth of her own vomit and the deep burgundy wine. 

It’s difficult to tell in the shadowy corner she occupies, but the Arsonist could’ve sworn that the her fellow Neutral Killing was crying. 

What a waste of such a life. 

The Arsonist catches herself thinking that she wouldn’t even have to douse her house at all; the amount of alcohol present should be more than enough fuel to burn the whole groaning structure down. 

But instead she sighs and props the Serial Killer up against the wall, mindful of the glass. She goes to fill a mug of cold water and dumps it on the unconscious woman’s face. 

“Welcome back to the land of the living. If you hurry up now you can be only five minutes late to the town gathering instead of fifteen.” 

***

The end starts something like this: 

There are those who remain: Godfather and a Janitor out of cleans, a Jailor with a single opportunity for execution left, a Vigilante already marked for death, herself, the Witch, and the Serial Killer. 

The Arsonist stares across the square at her fellow Neutral Killing, wonders what they will do today. 

The majority votes for the Jailor. The town member walks up to the stand himself solemnly, accepting of his own fate. Kicks the stool out from under himself. A venerable man, trying to die on his own terms. The Arsonist could respect that. 

The Mafia can kill neither herself nor the Serial Killer and the Vigilante is dead anyway. So they attack the Witch, who has already been forced to shield herself from an attack earlier on at the beginning of the trials. 

The Serial Killer goes for the Godfather. She tries to douse the Godfather as well, but the Witch interferes with her actions. 

In the morning the coroner reads in his gravely apathetic voice the deaths of the night, and the Arsonist tries to ignore the way the Witch’s dead eyes seem to accuse her directly. 

If she herself had been any less hesitant over burning her former allies, the Witch would’ve been one of the first to go, given how easily she could side with either the Serial Killer or the Godfather. 

The voting stalls for the day. The Godfather is smart enough to realize that in all likelihood he needs the Serial Killer dead or it’s the name of his Janitor the coroner will be reading tomorrow. 

The Arsonist refuses to play the Mafia’s game. 

***

The Arsonist is hardly surprised when she finds the Serial Killer sitting alone at the bar, laughing at nothing and staring down at her empty glass. 

“Hey.” She shuffles awkwardly. The Serial Killer doesn’t yet look drunk enough to be able to unable hold civil conversation at least. 

“Hello,” the other says, “I’m glad you’re here, because my goal of drinking myself one of the worst hangovers I’ve had in awhile just got a lot easier.” 

The Arsonist fights the urge to wince and instead straightens up, “I came to talk, not to hear all of your clever barbs.” 

“No, that was always the Witch’s area of expertise,” The Serial Killer waves the bartender over and gestures towards her glass, “I’d like another, and my companion would like a glass of absinthe.” 

“You know I don’t drink,” she says.

“Well, now’s as good a time as any to start.” The Serial Killer nods at the empty seat across from her as the bartender brings their drinks. “Besides, you look like you need something a little more potent.”

“We haven’t talked like this since the Town hung the Werewolf.” 

“Hm,” is all the Serial Killer says. She raises her glass. “Cheers. At least one of us will have won it and stuck it to the town.” 

“The trials aren’t over yet; the Godfather is still alive, even assuming you kill the Janitor.” 

“They might as well be. It was over when the Mafia decided to go after the Witch, and surely you don’t expect me to vote to hang you over the Godfather?”

She glances down at the green liquid that the Serial Killer had ordered and takes a sip. 

“You don’t look like you’ve fared very well the past couple months.” 

“Well yeah, going back to committing first degree murder between shots of alcohol isn’t exactly a healthy lifestyle.” 

“Well,” the Arsonist says, forcing herself to sound light-hearted, “it doesn’t matter anymore.” 

Her companion looks up again from her glass, her expression closing off. “No, I suppose it doesn’t.” 

“That’s not what I meant-,” she protests. 

“No, of course not,” the Serial Killer cuts her off dismissively, “but it’s a forgone conclusion.” She tosses her drink back and sighs. “Perhaps in another life, another town, things could’ve been different. But for now, I’m in the mood for something stronger. Whiskey perhaps. I hope you’ll at least have the fucking decency to foot the bill for our drinks.” 

***

The Arsonist dreams of the Doctor, dreams of roaring flame and charred flesh, that for all the Doctor’s skill was unable to be sewn together. 

That feeling of freedom, of horror, of that sick twisted rightness. The way she kneels down next the Doctor and tries in vain to extinguish the flames, tries in vain to pretend that it isn’t all her fault. 

And the stench of melting flesh in her nostrils stays long after she’s dragged herself out of bed and washed her face in her basin. 

She blames the absinthe. 

***

The Janitor’s dead the next day. A clean swipe to the throat and the victim would quickly bleed out. Efficient. Not at all like burning people. 

She, the Serial Killer, and the Godfather are the only ones left. The Godfather looks grim and resigned to his own fate. The Arsonist isn’t so sure. 

If the Serial Killer voted her now, with the Godfather’s support, she would win. 

But the Serial Killer looks at her from across the town square, gives her a small smirk, and casts her vote for the Godfather. She doesn’t quite realize what’s happening until she hears the sound of the Godfather’s old and battered gun clattering against the cobblestone floor. 

***

That night the Serial Killer visits her, brings not guns and steel as she has become so accustomed to seeing, but champagne and a genuine if somewhat strained smile. 

“To your victory,” she says. “It’s certainly well-deserved.”

“Why did you do that?” the Arsonist asks. “You could’ve won.” 

“Or the Godfather could’ve refused to vote either of us like an obstinate ass in an effort to prolong his own survival. Besides, I’d hate to see your pretty neck on a noose. Now drink my champagne damn it; I still want to get drunk tonight.” 

“I don’t drink,” she says, echoing her words from a few nights before, but accepts the glass the Serial Killer pushes demandingly into her hand anyway. 

She thinks of a sweet summer evening, the warm breeze through the windows. Them laughing over a similar bottle of champagne with the Witch, the Executioner, and the Survivor. Even if the trials had already begun by then, they still seemed so far removed, just a few hushed whispers behind polite society handkerchiefs and the occasional suspicious corpse in the morgue. 

She would give anything to return to that time again. 

_In another life things could’ve been different_ , she thinks but is no longer sure what exactly she’s referring to. 

It’s no surprise that the champagne tastes so bitter, even accustomed as she is to bitter things. 

She doesn’t douse anyone that night. The Arsonist stumbles shakily alone to a cold bed under the heady weight of champagne and with the faint smell of gasoline lingering in the air. 

***

“You know,” the Serial Killer tells her, as she leans against the now obsolete lynching stand, “going out in a blaze of fire was always a more glorious death than I’d imagined for myself. Certainly beats choking on my own vomit or scrabbling at the end of a rope.” 

There’s a small thought forming in the back of her mind. There’s still one more way this whole mess could end. She finds her lighter under folds of cloth, clenches it within her fist. 

The Arsonist smiles ruefully. “There is a forgone conclusion to this story, but not the one you think. The Witch made me douse myself a while ago. I’ve always been a coward, you see, it’s why I kept killing even after it became too much.

Just this once, let me be the heroine. Just this once, let me be selfless.” 

She hears screaming reverberating in her ears but unlike what usually stalks her dreams it’s the Serial Killer’s, the agonized screams of her last victim, who has finally realized what’s going on. _What the fuck_ \- she hears. 

She sees the Serial Killer start forward through a veneer of tears and gasoline, because _in another life things could’ve been different_ , sees her drop her knife and- 

She sets the world alight.

**Author's Note:**

> Technically Arso should've cleaned the gas off of herself by not doing anything that one night but whatever :/


End file.
